How to read a persecution news story

Any of you who regularly follow persecution news may find that it gets hard to read after a while. In response to reader requests on how to deal with so much horrific news – one becomes either despondent or desensitised – I’ll share how I handle it.

The horror of some of the stories, along with the sense of helplessness they leave in their wake, can be wearying. I’ve heard many a reader sigh that they just don’t want to read it any more; it’s too depressing. Imagine what it’s like, then, for a journalist to write about and edit it for 14 years.

Giving it to God

The incessant flow of bad news has led me to the only thing that can parry the effect of the continual buffeting of the soul – giving it over to God. Sometimes when my 19month-old daughter falls asleep in my arms, I pray for parents in Nigeria whose children have been slain in their beds by Muslim extremists. When my four-year-old son cries after falling down, sometimes I’m reminded later to send up a prayer for children in Somalia who cry out for mothers and fathers lost to murderous Islamists. A slightly chilly wind might lead me to pray for Christians in North Korean labour camps who suffer icy temperatures day and night without adequate food, clothing and medicine.